Iowa Farmboy meets Southern Belle, girl finishes college and moves from Georgia to Iowa to be closer to boy, boy marries girl, boy's job takes them both to Belo Horizonte, Brasil. One year later they have a baby (Gabriela Marina), another year passes and they move back to Iowa. A few months later they have a 2nd baby (Lilian Scarlett). The 3rd girl (Makayla Jasmine) joins the family a couple years after that. Boy continues job with a construction equipment maufacturing company in Burlington, Iowa; girl attempts to balance being a stay at home mom while working as a birth doula and childbirth educator.

We laugh a lot, travel as often as we can, and try to enjoy every moment of the craziness that is our lives. Thanks for joining us on the journey!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Tio Justin Chegou!

Eric has asked that I please announce for future reference that the airport shuttle is going to have an extra surcharge when forced to operate during hours deemed inappropriate. Yesterday's 4:30 am arrival of my little brother probably qualifies. ;)

Justin arrived in Belo Horizonte all safe and sound, as did the box full of goodies I asked him to smuggle in. You know, corn tortillas, infant gas drops, cranberry sauce, that kind of stuff. His suitcase, containing everything for him, however . . . not here. It seems Copa Air lost pretty much 1/2 of everyone's checked luggage on the entire plane. Justin waited in line in BH for 2 hours before he was even able to speak to the agents about his missing suitcase. Which also meant that after arriving at the airport at 5:00 am, we waited an additional 2 hours and 15 minutes for him. We did at least know what was going on, as everyone coming through the gate was upset and announcing Copa had lost the luggage of every single person on that plane.

Gabriela couldn't be more excited about seeing her Uncle Justin. It's been a long 3 months since we were in Georgia and she's changed a lot! Uncle Justin seems pretty pleased to be in her company too, especially since she can't talk yet. (I've been trying to convince her she needs to call him Tio Dedinho (Uncle Little-Finger). He got into a slight altercation with a sawmill recently and his left index finger was shortened a bit and Tio Dedinho just has a really nice ring to it. While I'm glad it is healing and doesn't look like ground beef anymore, he's just hoping I forget the nickname before Gabs is speaking.)

Anyway, since we are leaving Brasil the end of this year now, Eric is taking his remaining Brasilian vacation days while Justin is here. And Eric's good college friend, Jimmy, is flying into Rio today, so we are heading down there to meet him right now. Our agenda is looking a little something like this:

It should be a great time for all involved! We're looking forward to hanging out with Justin and Jimmy while getting to do some more fun stuff around Brasil!

I'll try not to let it get too quiet in blog-land though. After several weeks of him working extra late (as in getting home at 8:00 or 8:30, or even 9:07), I told Eric I really wanted a Mommy's-Day-Off on Saturday. He readily agreed, but then asked how much exactly it was going to cost him. Since he was expecting me to request a spa day or day of shopping or something, you can imagine his delighted surprise when I told him I just wanted a day to stay in my PJ's, cuddle up with my computer, uninterrupted, and catch up on some writing and posting.

So thanks to one great Daddy who stepped up and took over for a day, I have posts scheduled for the next two weeks while we're traveling! Check back on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this week and next.